THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE AND DANCE
presents
Written by
DIPIKA GUHA
Directed by
STEVE PEARSON
NOVEMBER
15-21
CENTER FOR
PERFORMANCE
EXPERIMENT
718 Devine St.
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF
THEATRE AND DANCE presents
Written by
Directed by
DIPIKA GUHA
STEVE PEARSON
Costume Design..............................................................................VERA DUBOSE
Scenic/Lighting/Sound Design............................................STEVEN PEARSON
Production Coordinator/Props.......................................................ROBYN HUNT
Production Assistant........................................................BRITTANY KMIECIAK
Dutch Translation.................................................................................WIM ROEFS
CAST
Lola..................................................................................................CARIN BENDAS
Ella/Madame P/Hana..................................................LINDSAY RAE TAYLOR
Mother Superior/Disinterested Assistant/Camille.................BROOKE SMITH
Hilmand/Andrei Laroche..................................................BENJAMIN ROBERTS
Taxi Drivers/Waiter/Dutch Boy............................................DIMITRI WOODS*
Monsieur Ravel/Police Inspector/Francois..........................MATT CAVENDER
Sister Maria D’Anges/Sara/Lila/Madame Laroche...............MELISSA REED
Herculine Barbin......................................................................RACHEL KUHNLE
*Appears courtesy of AEA
SPECIAL THANKS
Lisa Martin-Stuart
Kevin Bush
Ben Blazer
Josiah Laubenstein
K. Dale White
Andy Mills
Sam Gross
Charlotte Denniston
Leigh Cowart
Ray Jones
Wim Roefs
Pam Ledbetter
Nancy Lide
United Airlines
From the Playwright
DIPIKA GUHA
Herculine and Lola began its life as a short play I wrote
while I was in graduate school called Habeas Corpus. In
it, an American family goes to Amsterdam to encourage
their teenage intersex child to make a choice about her
sex. Mostly set in their Connecticut living room, it was
intercut with the story of two men in orange jumpsuits in
cages. It was my way of investigating the relationship between democracy and torture. I wanted to look at the cost of our tendency
towards binary thinking on real human bodies in space and time.
That summer my mentor Paula Vogel encouraged me to read the diary of
the ‘first true hermaphrodite’ Herculine Barbin. I read it and fell in love
with it immediately. I sensed that Herculine’s voice had a place in Habeas
Corpus. I wanted to honor it and tell the story in a way that would bring it
into the contemporary world, while holding it in its authentic time.
The first draft of Herculine and Lola was over a hundred and sixty pages. It’s
lost some of its size over time and workshops all over the country including
at WordBRIDGE, the Playwrights Foundation in San Francisco and Judson
Church, New York. However, the work I’ve been able to do here at USC in
being able to see the entire arc on its feet has been immeasurable.
Steve Pearson gave me an extraordinary gift which few playwrights ever get
on a first production. He said, ‘See it first as you wrote it, rewrite later’. He
has worked tirelessly with the actors, all the while keeping a sense of tone,
pace and rhythm in a play that changes shape every act. It has been stunning to watch him work with these brilliant actors who shape-shift through
the centuries in cosmic time.
I have not, as you can imagine, listened to Steve entirely! The actors got
revised pages a day before their dress rehearsal and found themselves written into some scenes and out of others. But I have also had the time and
space to listen deeply to the play. I am very grateful for the gift of the first
production of this play in the hands of a company as generous, imaginative
and hard working as this one. I bow to them for their courage in undertaking a play as large in scope and theme and slippery in tone as this one. And
I thank you as the first audience of this play for holding the space for this
story in its first incarnation on stage.
UP NEXT AT
LIGHT
THROUGH A
PINHOLE
MFA ACTOR SOLO SHOWS
Original solo works
written and performed by MFA Acting Candidates
DECEMBER 2-4
PERFORMANCES PRESENTED IN TWO GROUPS
WED, DEC. 2
THURS, DEC 3
GROUP A 6:30
GROUP B 8:30
GROUP B 6:30
GROUP A 8:30
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4
MARATHON OF ALL PERFORMANCES
BEGINNING AT 6:30PM